[First Class Passenger Cabin, Seattle-Heathrow Flight 1804]
[Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean]
CURRENT TIME: 14 July 2081, 1845 hours
Flight. What a marvel of mankind this is, Robert Newland mused about the gigantic airbus he was sitting in. He was known all across the ShadowNet as “Janus,” and currently traveling under one of many fake documentations.
He and eighty-two other passengers—he’d counted—were roaring across the ocean a mile or more above the glistening blue surface. To think humanity conquered something in their measly few thousand years of toy building which took Mother Nature millions of years of evolution to accomplish. He smiled, the reflection of his own ceramic-sleeved teeth shining back at him in the tinted first-class window.
“Fancy a drink, sir?” A cosmetically attractive flight attendant leaned over Janus’ comfortable sectional, his eyes sparkling with store-bought motes of shimmer suspended in artificial ocular fluid. “A ’22 Chablis, perhaps?”
Janus nodded, swiveling his tray into place. “That sounds perfect.”
While he waited for his drink, he sat up and looked around the plane. At first it was just with his eyes, seeing the sterile ivory plastic surfaces, all with their gentle sea-foam green balance panels and the charcoal-gray fabric that fought contact stains from repeated use. All were bathed in the soft glow of chemically safe bands of lights in the ceiling. Everything was designed to be easy on the eyes, subconsciously pleasing, and inviting to restfulness.
He looked out the window, his surgically maintained Caucasian anonymity reflected back at him. How much nuyen had he spent over the years making sure no scars remained where people could see them? It was worth the upgrade to his cybereyes to make their color adjustable in a blink, and hair dye to conceal his sandy blonde these days was available in vending machines. It all matched his well-practiced ability to blend in with the average, middle-class night lifer. He avoided clothes with logos or designs, wore the most pragmatic of overcoats, and rarely spent more than a few hundred nuyen on anything that would likely get a bullet hole in it and need to be replaced. The goal was never to stand out—and it worked.
Would his parents, if they saw him done up like this, even be able to recognize him in a lineup of other humans from the Seattle scene?
Not sure if I’d want them to, honestly.
Wanting to mentally change the subject of his introspection, Janus triggered his wireless gridjack and looked upon the airbus a second time…this time with the eyes of a seasoned decker. Planes like this one—which carried passengers across Matrix grids owned by multiple governing bodies—came fully equipped with a self-contained Matrix broadcasting hub. This gave its passengers access to the upper commercial layers of the web safely and without fear of getting bounced off-net by a border patrol firewall or some jingoistic spider that sees a speeding access point and fears the worst.
A thirteen or fourteen-hour long flight was drastically easier if one could fully jack in and function virtually for the duration, all the while one’s living body was laid back and snoozing in coach. So long as the grids matched up as the plane soared across the zones, it would be perfect. This job, for what it’s worth, wasn’t going to even theoretically start until he met with the client, so he didn’t have to worry about opposing hackers or someone accidentally unplugging his meatside connections.
Oh, imagine what a 7,694-kilometer dumpshock would feel like! Janus shuddered at the mere concept, but his hand was augmented to hold his drink without spilling a drop when it arrived a moment later.
After a sip—Damn, that is good—Janus flicked a five-nuyen tip into the attendant’s collector and looked out across the airplane’s grid. Privacy filters he could probably shatter with a little flex of a program or two kept him from seeing what anyone was doing with their access to the Matrix. Even so, he could tell easily two-thirds of the passengers were jacked in and logged on in some fashion.
Knowing the details from one world hidden from the Mundanes was never enough for Janus, since he had access to yet another. Janus was a rare breed of shadowrunner; a utility mage just augmented enough to wield the web as a decker, too.
It was a common misbelief that magic users couldn’t bear cyberware of any kind, that it interfered with their magical selves too much. But it was more like using a set of scales—so long as one side didn’t get too heavy, the balance could be maintained. He took upgrades to the cyber-stuff, making sure what went in wasn’t too invasive, and never let a half-cocked stitcher talk him into anything described as “great for your budget” or “the next big thing the megacorps will be talking about.”
Janus sent the disconnect signal to his jack, immediately changing his focus from the Matrix and its weblines of data and code to parting the shimmering veil of the astral realm, the realm of magic itself. It was always a little disorienting to maneuver from the realm of technology and virtual reality, bypass the physical world altogether, and then plunge into the metaphysical soup that was the magical blanket that covered all of reality. Not everyone could handle it on their best day, but Janus had been doing it for so long it was little more taxing than changing a set of spectacles for a slightly different prescription.
Sure, every fiberoptic line and power conduit throbbed like a body part left too long out in the cold whenever he cast a big spell, and he got a nosebleed if the arcane forces got too much for his Horizonware synaptic booster, but it was worth it. Hell, it was Janus’ multi-faceted position on a shadowrunning team that made him such a perfect candidate for so many gigs. While he wasn’t totally sure about this one just yet, it was probably what had put him in this cushy first-class seat, too.
Leaning into the magical flow in and around him, Janus looked at the airplane’s cabin differently. Unlike the visual transfer from the physical to the electric, shifting perceptions from the mundane to the astral was more elegant—like pulling back the petals of an individual flower’s bloom. The airplane’s walls and seats and people were still there, shadowy ghosts of what they were moments before, but there was so much more around them. Janus looked back at the rows of shadowy astral echoes behind him.
The plane was full of tiny magical flecks of astral life—a veritable swarm of small spirits—but they were mostly residual and likely clinging to passengers who didn’t even know they were there.
Janus would never admit it, but part of him knew the flight would be that much safer being the only magic-user on board. He’d heard that things “across the pond” had gotten a little tense in the last few months. Between anti-shamanism protests in the New Forest Preserve and rampant street mage harassment throughout central Europe—especially after the post-blackout legislation in Tír Tairngire—the spell-slingers there were on-edge. It would be just his luck if his flight had one of those “aether purism” terrorists on it, so Janus was glad he was alone in his astral assensing.
“Can I help you?” A blond-haired woman in an Olympian jersey he didn’t recognize barked at him, her thick Norwegian accent and blunt tone snapped him out of his absent-minded staring.
“Oh, hell.” He smiled, hoping to defuse the awkwardness. “I’m sorry. Just spaced out. I didn’t mean—”
“S’fine, s’fine.” She turned away, returning to her AR literary window.
Always nice to make friends.
While this wasn’t remotely Janus’ first trip or contract in one of the European Unions, it was the first time he’d been hand-picked by some rich, assumedly corporate bigwig to come over on his own. Every other time it was with some of his team, or at least with a few co-runners he’d worked with before. They’d paid extra for this solo gig, and claimed he had the right talents for the job… whatever that might be. This time, he wasn’t even meeting his teammates until after meeting the liaison at Heathrow.
Harkon. Abraham Harkon. Janus flicked open the invitational memo to refresh his memory about the job. The memo came with the round-trip flight tags, so even if it didn’t work out and the contract looked ugly, he was just out a couple of days’ transit and a hundred nuyen for airline meals. While he didn’t know what this was all about yet, his initial instructions were specific: fly to Heathrow, grab his bag, then find his ride to the meet-and-greet.
The rest of the flight was a breeze, especially after a few more cocktails. Before long, they were wheels-down and taxiing to the gate.
The sheer size of Heathrow always astounded Janus. No matter how many times he flew to or through that place, he never got used to the fact that this transit hub was the size of a small city and had within it just as much to see and do.
It was good to be aware of his surroundings in a foreign land, even one as high-tech and upper-level as the London megalopolis. There was always the chance of running into an old enemy, or even an unwanted former ally. When you run the shadows, everyone from your past who isn’t a fellow runner or part of the gig falls into two categories: people who remember what you’ve done and hold it against you, and people you lied to who could have discovered the truth. A place like Heathrow? If Janus wasn’t careful, who knows who might recognize him?
After a quick stop for a drink and bio-break, it was off to the baggage carousel blocks and back on the job, potentially. Janus wished he could’ve kept all his stuff in one carry-on, but the mouthpiece for the client, this Harkon guy, told him to pack for a week. If the gig sounded prime enough, he’d want to have the extra outfits—not to mention he was able to toss in a few foci pouches and the info-chip for that new ICbreaker suite he’d his eyes on from Cross Applied. If he was going to be here for a stretch, gig or no gig, he’d make the most of it.
He eased through the sea of travelers, most of whom were lost in their AR fields of view, windows open and flickering before their eyes to steer them to awaiting baggage, family, friends. So long as their personal perceptions were acute enough—or they had babysitter bumper field add-ons to their Matrix readers—they’d just slide off one another like bubbles of oil in churning water. It was an interesting paradox, being around so many people and actively seeking points of interaction while equipped with all the various ways to avoid contacting any. It just made the shadowrunner smile.
Janus grabbed a Not-A-Latte and got to his carousel at the right moment to snatch his worn duffel bag. The little ivory-colored chemi-dot on the seam had not turned red, meaning no one tampered with the smuggler’s pouch in the lining, which in turn meant the new scan proof poly-liner must have worked, too.
He didn’t exactly need to smuggle anything across national lines, as he had licenses for all of the equipment and reagents stashed in that pouch. It was just easier not to have to fill out all the Awakened paperwork if locals saw what he’s capable of and reported him for it.
The terminal opened up some as people began to file toward the various exits. Janus could hear the whine of the maglev tram superconductors power up, the chime of the registered exit turnstiles, and the collective hum of commerce happening all around.
Janus’ vision—made two hundred percent sharper by his cybereyes—picked out a dozen different points of personal interest as he swept the main landing’s open floor. Sale on AR enhancing umbrellas. Synthetic Scotch tastings, on the hour. A supermodel arguing with her bodyguards…
…and a pleasant-looking blond gentleman in a modest suit holding up a plasticard sign reading “C. Shaw”—also one of Janus’ most common aliases.
“Hoi.” Janus walked up and flashed a quick smile, flashing his AR credentials into an AR packet and flicking his finger on the corner of the sign. “You must be…Mister Harkon?”
“You can call me Abraham.” His accent was lighter than Janus had expected, remembering it being thicker during all the banter back and forth about how to set up this remote meeting. “I have a booth waiting for us at the Layover Landing, just past the incoming terminal gates. It isn’t fine dining, but it has nice privacy fields for us to discuss the particulars. Are you ready? Need anything before we head that way?” He gestured to the general marketplace in the middle of a veritable sea of duty-free shops and kiosks.
“I don’t think so.” Janus tapped a finger against the side of his chin. “Just a good bite will do.”
Layover Landing was a mid-price eat-and-go diner that had one or two specialty dishes from pretty much every nation that had flights in and out of Heathrow, with a menu page dedicated to local English and Welsh fare. After sending their orders to the kitchen, Abraham steepled his fingers and got down to business.
“I am the personal assistant and majordomo to one Mister Matthias Stockhausen, the sole heir and current CEO of the Stockhausen Mining Company.” He paused as if that was supposed to have some kind of impact on Janus, wrinkled his brow slightly when it didn’t, and continued. “It’s one of the only companies of its size in the European International Exchange to remain independent of the Triple-As.”
“Oh!” Janus manufactured the reaction Abraham was obviously looking for. “That is impressive to not be scooped up, especially so close to the roots of Saeder-Krupp. This Mister Stockhausen must truly come from a long line of savvy businessfolk.”
“And then some,” Abraham nodded. “Herr Stockhausen is also extremely diligent in choosing his freelance help. Which is why he asked me to meet you here today.”
“Ah…we’re done with the starters and now it’s time to talk about the main course.”
“Herr Stockhausen has a priority pick-up and extraction job in the Allied German States, and he believes your rare mixture of talents, being both well versed in the digital and the arcane, makes you uniquely perfect for this operation. It is upon my shoulders to introduce you to not only the extraction target, but also…” Abraham lowered his ’trode-layered spectacles, pulled up an encrypted series of files into a private AR window, and invited Janus to join his perusal. “Here are the members of the team Herr Stockhausen would like you to take charge of for the purposes of the extraction. Just as he did with you, all of these options are for you to peruse, weigh options upon, and assemble.”
“What exactly are we going to be doing?” Janus’ question was a good one, and one that needed to be addressed. Something about the way Abraham talked and behaved, it was just weird enough to be concerning, but not so strange as to warrant any internal alarms in his head.
“The team is to venture into a small urban extension of the Greater Berlin megaplex and pick up the hardcopy of an experimental technical component in a privatized think tank.”
“Sounds prime enough.” Janus hovered his attention over the first file in the encrypted window. “How hot is the ex-tech?”
“Classified,” Abraham said flatly. “Herr Stockhausen has every reason to believe other, less entitled entities will make a play for the tech as well. Hence your involvement in the first place.”
“Compensation?”
“All expenses paid out of the Stockhausen trust, plus an additional five thousand nuyen for the extraction. And each member of the team receives one half of a bearing percentage point of Stockhausen…or three points on any sales transaction involving the technical target in the six months following a successful extraction.” Abraham’s smile was the mask that every Johnson wore during a negotiation.
“Eight cash,” Janus countered. “Three-quarters bearing or five sale points on a full year’s stretch.”
“You are speaking for your whole team?”
“Does it make it more likely if I’m only talking my share?” Janus afforded himself a smirk.
Abraham nodded slightly, clearly trying to keep any judgment from his face.
“Then yeah,” said Janus, “I’m only talking for me. Let them choose to chat up their own terms.”
“Done.” Brushing a lock of blond hair out of his face, Abraham let out a short, satisfied sigh. A few flicks of his fingers and an AR scan of an intricate signet ring on his pinky to confirm his access, and the details of the gig were highlighted, changed, and set as uncontested. “Sign here and here when you are ready, then.”
“All right. Let’s take a look at our team.” Janus signed his terms with one hand and cracked open the personnel files with the other. There was something naughty about getting to peek into classified dirt an employer dug up on people. It was fun to know things he probably wasn’t supposed to.
But looking through the files was not as much fun as he’d anticipated. Although Stockhausen was thorough in his vetting of these shadowrunners, the files were heavily inked up under layers of redacted information, all the juicy stuff Janus wanted to get a peek at locked away. Could he shatter the redaction and get an eyeful anyway? Sure, but that was terribly unprofessional. He would just have to learn more about this trio in a more trusting and polite fashion; using what he was being given to peruse. The files were clear. He would be working with a British social chameleon adept named Faust, an American showboat gunslinger named Hollywood, and a wall of German troll muscle that went by Gute Fee.
“Only three other members?” Janus was used to working in quintets, so it seemed a little odd.
“Seeing your dual-natured talents and the expected ease of this extraction, Herr Stockhausen believed you would actually fill the needs of two members.” Abraham cocked an eyebrow. “He wasn’t mistaken, was he? I can easily add a fifth member if you desire, but that cost would reduce all compensation across the board.”
“No, no,” Janus waved him off the topic, “this is fine. Probably. This Hollywood guy seems like he could have trouble staying low-key, but I’ve accomplished more with less, so to speak.” He greenlit Faust and Gute Fee’s files, sending them back into the encryption again, leaving the elven gunslinger hanging in the aether.
“Allies of the Stockhausen family have worked with Hollywood before. Unbeknownst to the elf,” Abraham reassured him. “He is eccentric, but understands how to be a professional when the time comes to do the work. Considering he came highly recommended by the Draco Foundation, we are willing to take the risk.”
“Well, if he’s been rubber stamped by the Dragon’s lawyers.” Janus flicked Hollywood’s file to green like the others. “Who am I to argue with the Foundation?”
A short tone rang across Abraham’s commlink, a new-age wrist cuff that included visual cues along with audio and AR ones, and he sent the message up to his spectacles’ HUD. “If you are ready,” he said, finishing his drink and scooting his plate away from him, “our ride just taxied into position.” He pointed at the airport services mini-cart waiting at the entrance of the diner.
It was a different feeling to be driven around a busy airport. The security staff driving the cart had nothing on the vehicular skills of an Indianapolis go-ganger, and Janus swore he felt a few brush-by impacts with pedestrians throughout the terminal, no matter how many times the driver double-tapped the cart’s tinny bleet-bleet horn to warn of its speeding approach.
Pulling up to some unmarked doors, Abraham got off and tipped the driver while Janus grabbed his bag and watched. An airport employee, a musclebound orc in a comically tight-fitting hazard vest, ear protection hanging down around his trunk-like neck, escorted them through the doors and out onto the tarmac.
Drones, VTOLS, and every other manner of aircraft filled Janus’ visual landscape. While this wasn’t the first time he’d been on the vehicle access area of an airfield, it was the first time with the airport’s permission and clearance.
The three of them trotted across a few hundred paces of well-managed chaos to reach a small, deep blue private jet—a modified C750 to be exact. It was the kind of small airplane perfect for flying through militarized zones due to its chassis’ resistance to small arms fire and its extremely small take-off and landing strip requirements. The landing ramp was down, little LED walkway lights climbing upward, and Janus didn’t need any further invitation.
If there’s another plane ride already, Janus thought as he ascended into the jet, I’m getting my choice of fraggin’ seat.
Or not.
The Cessna already had a passenger. Sitting in the most central plush recliner—one of five—was the mystical adept from the personnel files Janus was just looking at, Faust.
“Welcome aboard, Janus,” they said in a light Cockney accent, their smile almost as enchanting as their voice. An angelic mixture of feminine softness and masculine edge, combined with the magically-enhanced perfection of skin tone and shimmering, kaleidoscopic irises—there was no question about Faust’s talents.
Janus considered himself pretty good at compartmentalizing his feelings when on a gig, but Faust’s abilities caught him off guard, and before he even knew what was going on, he was sitting beside them and clinking a glass of sparkling rosé against theirs. They ran their hand through their shoulder-length cornsilk hair, fingers bedecked in seven different rings (with another six on their other hand), and a rainbow shimmer of color was left in its wake.
“Whoa.” Janus let his own magical forces swell up in himself, giving him a little more defense against the adept’s charms. “Can you dial it down a bit?” He smiled, but he truly was upset at himself. You know better around sosh adepts, he scolded himself. “If we’re going to be working together on this, we have to watch out for one another’s gifts and such.”
“Bloody hell!” they answered, making a dramatic grimace of wrong-doing acknowledgement—which made it seem slightly less genuine, of course. “It’s habit, mate. Whenever I meet someone new, I get all tussed up in my head about making a good first impression. Then my pheroes go all nuts. An’ when things are smooth sailing, we’re having so much fun that I don’t even think about why.”
“Well, if you can turn it down a bit?” Janus laughed—likely still under the mystic’s influence, he was internally annoyed about being chemically adjusted against his knowledge.
“Sorry. It’s like Nova-bombing the punch at a party—everybody ends up dancing and laughing and…well…and nobody remembers where it all started until the next round of corporate piss tests come ’round.” They laughed, and Janus knew that little metaphor wasn’t just manufactured for the moment, and that it was more like a cautionary memory. “I’m just utter drek at meeting new people without my, erm, social lubricants at full blast. Let’s start again.” They offered out a slender hand to Janus. “I’m Faust. Public interactions and chemical weapons specialist.”
“Janus.” He grasped their hand, making note of the porcelain-smooth lack of texture, scars, callous, or even fingerprints. “Forced Matrix navigation and arcane solutions.”
“A spell-slinging code jockey?” Faust looked honestly shocked. “I love it. It is a dichotomy of the mind and spirit. Brilliant. Simply class.”
“It’s not as rare as you’d think in the Seattle area.” Janus liked to play down the rarity of his skillset combination. It is always good to have an ace up one’s sleeve; prepare to deal with a mage? Bam! A decker bricks your network. Firewall against a decker? Pow! Manabolt right up your nethers. “Throw a rock in Dante’s, you know?”
“Deflect all you want, mate.” Faust smiled coyly. “But I know what kind of unicorn I’m working with here.”
“There will be no unicorns involved on this mission,” Abraham interjected with an awkward laugh, stepping into the plane and signaling the hatch closed behind him. “That would just complicate things.”
“Have a seat,” Faust offered. “Have a drink. Lets us get more acquainted before we meet the others?”
Abraham shook his head.“I’ve got to keep a clear head, friend. Herr Stockhausen expects me always to stay sharp when I’m representing the company. And we’ll only be in the air for an hour and a half, so I shouldn’t. Tilt one back on my behalf, and we’ll be in Berlin before you know it.”